Search form

Could More Tolling Replace the Gas Tax?

Melissa Lafsky at The Infrastructurist poses the question. With raising the gas tax a political impossibility, how can we repair our ailing infrastructure? A lot more toll roads, says Lafsky.

Unlike the gas tax, tolls show an immediate connection to user, says Lafsky: "...tolls are more gradual and can be more directly and easily related to the purpose for their existence: You are driving on this road, and this road requires maintenance, so in order to drive on it you need to pay a small toll."

Lafsky writes that the need for reform of the funding system for infrastructure is great: "the U.S. is fast approaching critical levels of disrepair and technological obsolescence..."